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00:00:03 

[Rodrigo Honorato] 

All right, so let's get started, y'. All. So I'm here to, you know, share some experience, but I want to talk to y'. All. I want to reflect things, reflect on things about teaching and actually, you know, share a little bit of my experience, hear from you. 

So I'm here with the chat open. So I see people from different parts of the world. Bolivia, Ecuador, Romania, Ukraine, Lithuania or Lithuania. How do you pronounce that? Kazakhstan. 

Mexico. Mexico's in house. Spain, Puerto Rico, Jordan. Wow. There are people from everywhere. 

I'm going to share something with you guys. So right here in the back. Let me unblur the back. You can see a map. Can you see this map? 

00:00:50 

This is a scratch off map. A scratch off is a map that you can pretty much scratch off to color the map as you travel to the places. So when I see people here from different places, I really want to visit all of y'. All. Like Jenny's from China. 

I've been to China. London, from Peru. I've been to Peru and I love those places. I've been to Mexico as well. Oh, my God, I love Mexico. 

Canada, Argentina. I've never been to Argentina. It's really close, but I've never been there. I mean, I haven't been there yet. I really want to go. Vietnam, Peru, Poland, Georgia. Wow, Georgia. That is nice. Okay. Czech Republic. 

You know, there are people from everywhere and I'm sure that you guys are experienced teachers. You have, you have been teaching for a while. Maybe you just started. Maybe you've been in this career for a long time. You know, I first started learning English when I was 17 years old.

00:01:53 

But when I was 19, I had my first class, my first group. Of course I was nervous. And as I said before, being nervous makes, you know, makes sense to me now because that means that I'm doing something important. If you're not nervous, you know, everyday activities that you do, like you're not nervous when you open the fridge. Yeah, you just open the fridge. 

This is something that you do every day or when you check your social media, nobody's nervous. You're just scrolling up and down. But when you're doing something that matters, something that's important, something that's going to be life changing, that makes you a little bit nervous. You know, I grew up in a household where nobody spoke English. Okay? 

00:02:33 

So I'm from Brazil, born and raised. So everybody around me only spoke Portuguese. So I spoke Portuguese with my parents, with my sister, with people around me. But I decided that I wanted to learn English, and it all started because of hip hop. So I was a 17 year old teenager, right, listening to my favorite songs that were, you know, produced by Dr. Dre, Snoop Dogg, Eminem, you know, all those rappers that, you know, were very famous back in 2002, 2003.

And I started listening to that kind of music and I just wanted to speak that language, so I had to start it. So I asked my mother what I could do to learn that language. My mother said, well, I'm going to get you enrolled in an English school. Okay, fine. And that's how it all started.

00:03:33 

So. But how do you start strong? How do you make it meaningful? How do you make it useful for the rest of your life? So you see me here 23 years later, 21 years teaching, now I see that English has been useful.

I'm here with macmillan. You know, I've had the opportunity to come here and share with, you know, people around the world, you know, how many people are here right now? Over 900 people. This is crazy. This is crazy.

And now I can look back and say, wow, that was really worthwhile. You know, that really worked. I'm here speaking internationally. I'm doing exactly what English is supposed to be doing. Bridging the gap, you know, look at that.

00:04:23 

People from Turkey. I've been to Turkey and I love it. Oh my God. You know, Slovakia, I really want to go there. I've checked pictures and videos.

Look at that. Barcelona's in a house. Gustavo Hosha from Brazil. Yes. You know, we're home. 

You know, this is amazing. Dominican Republic. I was there, you know, a month ago. This is what English is all about, communication, bridging the gaps. And we do this, we make this happen in this world.

We are teachers. We're strong enough to connect people. We are so responsible for bringing people together. So the best way to do it is to start strong. From the basic level, you need to have a strong base.

00:04:39 

You know, if you have like a beautiful house, but you don't have a strong base, you know what happens, right? So you need to have a strong base. But here's the thing. Let me share my screen with you. So here is, you know, first is I have to let you guys know I was really happy when I saw my picture on this.

Look at that. Around these people. Amazing people. Some of the people that I have been following for years. You know, I've been, you know, admiring a lot of people in here.

And now I'm just on the team, you know what I'm saying? So this is how important English has been. The. The role that English has played in my life has been tremendous. So we're going to start strong the day one language beginners really need.

00:06:03 

But when I talk about language, I'm not only talking about the linguistic systems that we talk about, like Portuguese, Spanish, English, Mandarin. I'm talking about some other kinds of languages, too, like how you're going to communicate truly with your students. And. Well, for this session, I prepare the starting strong the day one language beginners really need. Most beginner courses start with greetings.

And I think you are right. You have to start with greetings, right? Hi. Hello. Hey.

Good morning, good afternoon, good evening. You have to teach them the difference between good evening and good night, you know, because you. You just arrived. You don't say good night. Good night is when you say goodbye.  

We have to teach that. We already know that. So when I put this here, it's not to say that you're doing a wrong job. I'm not saying that. I'm saying that you're doing the right job.

Personal information, you have to have that. My name is. I am 17 years old. I'm from Brazil. I'm from Turkey.

00:07:04 

This is exactly what we're doing here. This is useful language. Look at the chat. You guys are telling me where you guys are from. Now tell me here on the chat, too, y'.

All. I want you to tell me, okay? Your favorite local food. Your favorite local food. Let me know in the chat.

I want to see some names. Tacos, ceviche. Okay. Pasta. All right, all right.

I can see. Wow, there's a lot. There's like, there's some in here that I don't even know how to pronounce, but. Empanadas. Oh, yeah, I know how to pronounce that one.

Pasta. Kapila Ny. Irina. I don't know how to pronounce that, but if you guys like it, I'm sure this is delicious. And look at how amazing it is.

I'm asking you a question. You guys are answering. This is how we get personal information. Look at that. My name is.

I am from this place. My favorite food is personal information. This is very important. And this is useful. Breaking the ice like this right now.

00:08:10 

So the third thing is vocabulary lists. And this is where I'm going to talk a little bit more about because I think that vocabulary is very important. We need to know the words, right? We need to know the adjectives. We need to know the names of things.

But be careful, because if you only teach the vocabulary list Maybe without the context, this is not going to help. I'll try to prove my point in here. So. But this may not be what learners most need at the beginning of their journey. What do they actually need?

I believe they need confidence. I believe that they need to feel safe, they need to feel good in the classroom. They need to feel that if they make a mistake, that's going to be okay, it's going to be all right. You know, the teacher might take some notes and then teach you something later. And then when you go home, you just go with that feeling like, wow, my teacher is really nice.

00:09:18 

He really corrected, you know, corrected me. And now I can speak better or I can use this structure better, I can use that vocabulary more accurately. So this is what they need as well. So this session, explore some catch all chunks. We're going to see some chunks that we can use and I would say that you should use in your classrooms.

You know, chunks are very important for this session. Here. Beginners, they need to ask for help. You know, the simple language that you have to say that you have to, to use when you say something like, teacher, excuse me, what is the page number? And then the student feels good because for the first time he asked the complete question in English 100% instead of mixing the two languages, you know, so making them feel good is really important.

00:10:23 

This is something that we call effective language. So you need to have this effective language ready to use in the classroom. Manage confusion. You know, sometimes the students just does. The students don't understand what they have to do, so they need to have that language too to say, excuse me, teacher, I don't understand it.

Could you repeat, please? You know, this is going to be very, very important for you as well. And here's the thing. Participate from the get go. Participate from the very start, from the very beginning.

00:11:03 

And we're going to start with the word get go. So remember I told you that learning a list of vocabulary is important, but if it's not contextualized, it's going to be a little bit more difficult for them to really grasp the meaning. I learned the expression get go from the movie Coach Carter. And Coach Carter used the expression get go. And I didn't really understand it because I knew the word separately.

I knew the word get and I knew the word go, and they were both verbs. But hold on a second. The get go the is an article that comes right before a noun. So get go becomes a noun. I was very logical, Ray, but I didn't know.

And then I asked my Teacher. And my teacher said, oh, Rodrigo, get go means the beginning, the start. And I was like, really? So when you put those words together with the hyphen, it becomes the beginning. Wow, this is different.

00:12:03 

So that's when I realized that I could not only learn the words separately without the context, I had to connect to the story, to the context. And that's why I decided to use this in this text. But let's move on. So what I want you to do in your classrooms, you know, whether that being in school or, I don't know, if you're a private teacher, if you teach online, keep it simple, keep it effective. Have a clear, you know, like a clear plan for your class.

Know exactly where you want the students to get at the end of the class. Well, at the end of my class, I want my students to know the Alphabet and the numbers. And for that I'm going to use these contexts. Okay, how do you spell your first name? My first name is.

That's the pronunciation in Brazilian Portuguese. R, O, D, R, I, G, O. And then you have to let them know that this is important because sometimes they just go like this, oh, really, teacher? We're going to understand. I mean, we're going to learn just the Alphabet.

00:13:24 

It doesn't really make sense. I want to have conversation classes. You know, students, how they are. Right. But you have to let them know, say, okay, so let's have a conversation.

What is your email? And the person goes like this, oh, my email is Rodrigo Noratoa. And then you look at and say, oh, my God, I didn't understand because you spoke in Portuguese. Yeah, well, my email is in Portuguese, so I'll have to spell my email. Right.

And now they see the meaning behind learning just the Alphabet. They're not learning just the Alphabet.

They're.

They're spelling their name. And if they spell incorrectly, they're not going to receive the email.

You understand me? So now you show the student that it's simple but it's necessary. So we start from the necessary. Effective. It's effective language.

Language that they will use. Look at those names in here. I see some people here with names like Daphne Green. And then I just go like Daphne Green. If you come to Brazil, Mrs. Green.

00:14:28 

Well, it's going to be difficult for people here to understand green because they don't understand English. So you'll have to spell it out. You have to go G, R, E, E or double E, N. So that's going to be very important. So we're going to keep it simple and I know that you guys are professional. I know that when you're preparing your classes, you're worried about your lesson planning.

You know, you have everything else set. So in the beginning of the class, you're going to say hi. Well, and then right after that, we're going to recover a few things that we, we did in our last class. I'm going to put some random words on the board, ask them if they know those words. Then I will elicit and pre teach the vocabulary.

00:15:16 

I'll prepare them for the listening. I'll prepare them for the text. They will. You know, I'm so worried about the ttt, which is the teacher talking time. I don't want to speak a lot because this is my students class, not.

My class is not focused on me anymore. It's focused on the student. So student talking time needs to be all the way up there. So let's talk about, you know, 80% to 20%, you're going to be a guide. So I know you guys are worried about that.

I know that you guys are professional drilling and practice graded language. Look at this. I'm talking to you because I know you guys speak English. But when I talk to my students, I usually slow down. I speak not very fast, slowly for my students to understand.

00:16:11 

So it's graded language. I tone down, I speak slowly. And I don't use complicated hard vocabulary. Sometimes I even change my accent. You know, I like to play around with accents.

Okay, so some people say, man, you kind of sound like American. But I cannot sound like this all the time. Sometimes I have to slow down. I have to use, you know, different ways of speaking. And of course I know to prepare your grammar.

Today we're going to see simple present. Today we're going to see present continuous. Today we're going to see present perfect. If you're a teaching present perfect to your beginner students, we need to have a personal conversation. You know, we're doing keep it simple.

00:17:02 

Do not go crazy. All right, so sometimes we over teach, right? Your student says, I am married, I am married for five years. And then you go like this. Well, you know what, In English we don't use this verb tense when you're talking about something that started in the past and continues to this day.

This should be the present perfect. So you want to say, I have been married. Come on. Why are you over teaching their basic level? Calm down.

All right, so let's see. But what else do we need in that first day? We need the charisma. We need a friendly approach. We need to have nice conversations with the students.

Know who your students are. You know, sometimes you just don't know who they are. You know, you just have a lesson plan. Everything is prepared that's based on the theories that you've read, the classes that you've had before, what your professors told you in college. I know, I've been to college as well.

00:18:04 

Those things were very important. They set the basis for me to become the professional I am. But what about this personal experience? What about the, hey, how are you doing today? Hey, what do you guys like to do in your free time?

You know, I love to watch series. I'll give you something here. My favorite series is Breaking Bad. Breaking Bad is my favorite series. So when I give you this information as a teacher, you should be like, well, I'm going to find a Breaking Bad scene on which I don't know, Skyler or Heisenberg is using the present continuous.

And then I'm going to teach present continuous using something that they like, you know, and the students love it. Look at this. I'll give you one example in here. Look at that. I'm looking at some people in here.

00:18:57 

Like Mr. Alvarez said, cool. And Hadiya said, exactly. And Vanessa said, agree, empathy and knowing your student is so important. And now I'm looking at Vanessa's comment in here, and maybe Vanessa is going like this. Wow, the teacher just read my comment.

This is nice. You know, around, what, 900 people in here? He saw me. And Daniela just said, my first lesson is usually based on getting to know my students. Daniela, we are on the same boat.

I do exactly the same thing. I want to know who they are, what they like. Do you like pizza? Oh, really? You like tacos?

00:19:36 

Wow, your parents are from Mexico. That is nice. I know that Mexico is fantastic, right on the north you have Juarez. And here, if you go to the eastern part, you have this beautiful Yucatan Peninsula, right where you have Cancun, Tulum, Playa, Paraiso. Oh, my God, I love that country.

And now my student is feeling so connected with me because he feels like this man, my teacher really knows me. He wants to know, you know, who, you know, I'm hanging out with. He wants to know about my family, about my background. You know, that is fantastic. Another thing, Assume they know nothing.

00:20:18 

And I'm gonna do this here. Assume they know nothing. You know, the most obvious thing for you, like, come on, everybody knows that after she. We use doesn't is not, don't. Oh, it's so obvious now.

I'm not even Going to teach that? No, do not do that. Assume they know nothing and hardly ever speak. So you see me speaking here right now because it's a presentation and I only have a few moments in here with you. A few minutes in here with you.

So I have to speak. I have to move a little faster. I want to show you so many things, but not in the classroom. The classroom is a place for you to have a good time, for you to enjoy the moment, for you to really grasp the meaning of that class. Talk to the student.

00:21:04 

Make meaningful conversation with that student. Move slowly from words to statements to questions. Guys, this is the word name. Name. For example, my name is Rodrigo.

In Brazil, we say, that's my name. My name is Rodrigo. Look, I just moved from the word to the statement. What is your name? Repeat the sentence.

My name is Rodrigo. What is your name? My name is Jessica. Good job, Jessica. Very good.

Now, Jessica, ask this question to him, to the boy. To him, to the boy. Him. Now you see, the person is catching that. And maybe the pronunciation is going to be a little off, but it's okay.

It's the first class. What is your nami? No, it's not nami, it's name. Repeat name. And the person repeats name.

And you always give that, you know, the positive feedback. Hey, good job. What is your name? So what is your name? My name is Rodrigo.

Her name is Jessica. What is your name? And the guy was like, my name is Brian. And he feels confident.

00:22:26 

Okay, now we're going to move to the last name. You know, bring the miming. You know, use your hands, use your facial expressions. Really, you're happy. I'm happy too. 

But yesterday I was sad. I was really sad because, you know, use miming images. If you have paper, if you have a book, show the images. If you have realia. For example, I don't know if you know, but I love to read. 

This is my book. It's one of my favorite books. It's in Portuguese because this is my first language. So I was relaxing before this class. I was learning, you know, something different.

00:23:01 

Reading in Portuguese, you know, bring things for them. Realia. Slow down while talking. Teach less. You don't need to teach a lot.

Sometimes we get so caught up in teaching, right? We love to teach. I love to teach. When my student asks me a question, I can teach them a lesson on that question. Once I've had the student just asking me, teacher, is it okay to say she don't.  

The first thing that comes to my mind was like this. Well, yes. It's okay for you to say she don't if you're in the streets. For example, if you go to the streets of New York, people will say, she don't. She don't know, she don't like.

00:23:40 

And then I started teaching them about culture and slang terms. And sometimes people don't follow the normative grammar of the language and all that. But it's the basic level, guys. This is the beginner's level. Do not teach too much to go like, no, it's not okay to say she don't.

It's she doesn't. Okay, he, she, it doesn't. The rest we use don't. I don't, you don't, they don't, we don't. Okay, okay, fine.

Solve that problem. Because you're teaching the grammar right now. You want them to have strong bases. Later they will learn the slang. They will learn how to speak more informally, but not right now.

00:24:21 

Sound clear? Okay, well, I just see here, Ty Lee, just say thank you for reaffirming my teaching methods. Nodding my head in agreement. That's great, Ty. That's great.

Good to hear that, guys. But if you disagree, let me know, okay? I'm reading the comments. You know, sometimes there are a lot of comments in here, but you know, let me know. As you say, teacher, I disagree.

And then later we can have the conversation. But what about the last topic here? Teach chunks of language. Sometimes we just don't know the names, right? You know, I remember the first time I heard about chunks.

00:24:59 

And then everybody around me was nodding their head in approval and agreement, just like Tylee did. And I was embarrassed because I was around teacher, teachers, and I didn't know what chunks of language was. And I just go like this. And since everybody's nodding, right? So I'm gonna nod because I don't want to be odd, you know, but then at the end of the day, the teacher really did what I'm gonna do here now.

So for those who don't know what chunks are, well, chunks are ready made groups of words that people use together to communicate quickly and naturally without thinking about grammar or words separately. So think about that. The chunks, you know, chunks are pieces of things. You have the chunk of meat, for example. So I want you to learn that chunk.

00:25:59 

You know, the chunk is take a shower. You don't ask me what take means. It's take a shower. I take a shower every day. Brazilian people takes two to three showers every day.

This is crazy out here, y'All.

This is crazy. But you know, so you have to learn the chunks. That's going to be easy for them.

Why is it so important? Because the students, they communicate immediately when they use the chunks, and they have a reduction in the cognitive load. You know, they don't have to think about so much. They don't have to think about. And how do I do that?

Is it going to be get a shower, take a shower, have a shower. You already give it to them. Hey, you say take a shower. Okay, so that. Exactly.

00:26:52 

Safa just said to ease communication, you make it faster. Chunks and collocations, Nana working together. So you have the chunks of language and you have the collocations, too. And that's a great point. You just put in there, like, you know, make a payment, not do your payment, but you do business.

You don't make business, and you pay attention to, but you give a call. You know, those languages, those chunks are important for them to communicate. And when they feel good with that expression, they also feel confident, even though they don't have all that grammar, all that vocabulary, you know, that's going to be easy for them. And here's my personal answer. So should.

00:27:40 

Should teachers use chunks? And my answer is yes, because they help, you know, the process of the language. You know, they help to process the language faster and more effectively since chunks are learned as single units rather than word by word. Remember I told you in the beginning of the session that I learned the expression get go? And then like, the get go, I was like, okay, now I know that the get go, I'm not going to be asking my teacher.

It's like, oh, but the teacher. But, teacher, the verb go means to. To move to a place, right? To go to a place, see? Well, yeah, but the get go is actually this.

Oh, but teacher, the beginning is like a starting point. I'm not going to be asking all these questions. I just learned the get go means the beginning, the start. So you learn it, and then you don't have to think too much. From the get go.

Exactly. Alejandra. From the start, you know, from the beginning. So here's one thing that I want to share with you. Students, they tend to translate things.

00:28:43 

You know, they translate from one language to another, and that's going to be really difficult. I'll give you one example. In English, we say, I am 25 years old. I am. We use the verb to be for that.

But in Portuguese, we use the verb have. So we tend to say, I have 21 years. And that's not correct in English. So we have to teach that chunk for the student. We teach them that because they will just say, okay, when I talk about age, this is how I say it.

I am. And then I say the number years old. That's it. If you translate word by word here, you know, from English to Portuguese, it doesn't make any sense. In Portuguese, it sounds like English is a completely crazy language.

00:29:33 

And then I teach them that this is just like having a MacBook and a Windows PC. On the Windows, you put Control C for copy, contour, V for pasting. But on MacBook, if you press Ctrl C, it's not going to copy anything because it's common C. So that's the same function, but different languages and the languages don't follow one another. So you have to learn the system separately, just like Sosi said. And Krashen talked about this effective learning thing, you know.

So this was about, you know, learning the language based on what they like, what they do. So look at the third line in here. I asked the question, how old are you? In Portuguese, If I translated word for word in here, that would be, how many years do you have? And if you ask me that, how many years do you have?

00:30:29 

I would say two, because this is what I would understand. How many years do you have? Two. Like, how many years do you have? I have two.

It goes that way. And then you bring that for what's the difference between do and make? What's the difference between 2 and 4? Don't go crazy about the prepositions. Just teach them in chunks so they learn.

That is not pay attention. It's pay attention to. And they think they'll go crazy. Like, I pay attention in you. Pay attention on you.

No, pay attention about you. No, you just learned. Pay attention to Exactly. Deduct and deduce. Adriana, I'm with you on that.

Look at that. The last one. Ripe and unripe. In Portuguese, we say green and mature for fruit. So if the fruit is ripe, you just say it's mature.

00:31:19 

But if you say mature in English, it doesn't really make sense. So the languages are different. If you learn the chunks, the collocations, as somebody else said here, it's going to make your life a little easier. Okay? And here are some chunks that I would like you to bring to your students on the first class.

You know, have them take notes. Hey, whenever you need to say this, I want you to say it in English, okay? Can you help me? How do you say this in English so, you know, you show them A book. Say, how do you say this in English?

Book. A book. Oh, I love re. I love to. No, teacher, how do you say this in English?

How you say read? Reading. I like reading books. Good job. I like reading books, too.

So you have them feel comfortable, you know, now they use the language, they go home. This is exactly what I did. What? When I learned, I went home and I told my mom, say, mom, I talked to my teacher in English 100%. And that 100% meant two sentences.

But I was excited about it. And, you know, I continued, yeah, you see the balloons going up? I'm celebrating in here. What does it mean? Is this correct?

00:32:41 

What's the difference between this and that? How do you spell. What about this for managing confusion? I don't understand. You know, they feel good when they say, I don't understand because it's in English.

You know, they are using the language for a teacher. You know, in Brazil, we call the teacher's teacher. That's okay. That's not impolite. Here, just say, teacher, I don't understand.

Or if you want to sound really cool, you say, sorry, I didn't catch that. I didn't understand. You know, first class, okay, I do this with my students. Believe me. The language kind of sounds a little bit difficult, but they learn the chunk.  

So they don't think about the verb catch. And now they philosophically think about it. No, they just learn. When I say, I didn't catch that, that means I don't understand it. That's it.

00:33:30 

What about. This one's here for interaction. You're going to play a game with your students, you know, have them go to the whiteboard to write something, and the other student go, teacher, can I try or can I do it? Is it my turn? Can I try again 

I don't know. I'm not sure yet. That makes sense. You know, that makes sense. You know, those are chunks that they should learn on a very first day.

You know, give them that, you know, have them. Even if you write those in in their language, like in Brazil, here, that would be in Portuguese. Can I try again? That would be poso tentajo vo. Yes, write it down.

You know, that's okay. You know, just use both languages now just to make them feel good. And then later they will start eventually using just the English version. Here's one thing that I want to share before I go. Why you don't want to learn only the word separately?

Imagine if your student just asks you the question, teacher, how do you say way in Portuguese?

00:34:43 

You know, if you are very innocent teacher, you would just go. In Portuguese, way means coming. But you cannot just simply answer that question because when you do, you are helping the student think that one language is easily translated into the other. You know, so. Oh, every time I see the word way, it means camino, but it's not like that, by the way, means something else on the way.

So if you call me and say, hey, I'm on my way, it means something else. Or if I say no way, or even the. The slide here, ways of using it, you know, so there are different things. Yeah, like on my way versus in my way say, excuse me, you are in my way. I need to go.

So, you know, so that's going to be more complicated if you teach them just the word. So go for the chunk. Hey, whenever you want to say this, this is the expression we use. And that makes your life easier. And I promise you, it makes your students life easier.

00:35:56 

They feel comfortable. They think that they know how to say the whole thing. They can express themselves. They are not just putting words together in their heads.

And then when they speak, eventually things come out a little off. You're just like, what do you mean? And we reduce the what do you mean? When you learn chunks, clear. So this is one thing that I like to do with my students.

Usually I do that with my adult students. Okay? But my adult students, on the first day, if they're basic level students, this is what they have. It doesn't matter. You see here, there's some present, perfect in here.

00:36:35 

There's some simple past. There's a present, simple present in here. There's the use an ing here after the verb. Like, okay, we have all of that, but I'm not going to teach them that. I just give them exactly what they need.

Hey, guys, for the next class, I need you to introduce yourself using these prompts. So I give them as chunks. Look at that. And then I do the first one. My name is.

I'm 39 years old. I was born in Brazil, but I grew up in Brazil. Oh, so. But doesn't make sense in here. So change the butt for end.

If you were born and raised in the same place. Okay, I was born in Brazil and I grew up in Brazil. Okay, I'm married. In my case, I'm married. But if you're not married, you say, I'm single.

If you have children, you say, I have. If it's only one, I have a child. If I have zero or more than one, we say children, I have zero. Children. I'm married.

00:37:46 

I have zero children. I've been married for three years. I am an English teacher. I like reading and watching YouTube videos in my free time. Okay?

And then they learn this. But I'm not teaching them the meaning of I've been. Oh no, it's not the moment yet. Exactly. This is all about me.

Graphic organizers. Safa, you just got it right. That's exactly what it is. You know, so that's crazy, right? I have zero children.

Yeah, but we have one child. This is crazy. I know, but you know, that's English. This is how it goes. So here's the thing that I want you to avoid.

I want you to avoid extensive lists of decontextualized vocabulary. I want you to avoid memorizing definitions of words separately. I want you to avoid extended grammar explanations. This is not the language they need, you know, from the get go. Avoid answering students questions about words alone.

00:38:59 

They will trick you into doing it. Teacher, how do you say table in Portuguese, in Arabic, in German? And then if you answer, and if you answer, you know where my computer is right now? It could be a table or a desktop. You understand me now?

We have a difference in there. But table also means something else, like a table that you have on the computer where you follow things, you know, so be careful with that. So here are some bibliography for you to check later. You know, the input hypothesis you have, you have here language acquisition with the lexical approach. And well, I'm sure you're going to learn so much.

Try putting that into practice. And if you do, contact me. Let me know if this thing makes sense. So you can find me on my Instagram, which is Teacher Rodrigo. That's my first and last name and I can spell it.

00:40:03 

Look, R O D, R I G O H O, N O, R A T O. Yeah, I learned how to spell when I was a beginner student and that makes sense now because if I only say my name, my international friends will be a little bit lost. So spelling is very important. I also have a YouTube channel, English, Black Friday. You can check me out there. And if you want to, you know, to, to have a closer contact with me, this is my LinkedIn right there.

I just learned this new word and that's why I put in here. Thank you. Gracias. Because I speak a little bit of Spanish and Jacuya in Polish. That was the first one that I learned in Polish.

Obrigado. Thank you guys very much for your time and for the messages. You know, everything. I'm out of here.

00:40:03 

[Hemylle Oliveira] 

How amazing. Such a delightful session. Rodrigo, what a pleas. What a pleasure it was to have you with us. It was amazing to understand a bit more about your lessons, how you structure them, the tips and strategies you provided, such as grading language, teaching chunks, playing around with accents, and as a teacher, that was something you mentioned regarding getting to know learners.

That for me was imperative because we, we need to know not only those students as, as learners but, but as human beings in getting to understand their likes and their lives. So thank you so much for sharing that. There were so many sessions and you can see everyone loved everything that you shared. So I've got a few questions to you. Okay.

00:41:52 

[Rodrigo Honorato] 

Okay.

[Hemylle Oliveira] 

The first would be how do you approach correction with your learners? Do you do it on the spot? Do you do it in a delayed manner? How do you prefer to approach that?

[Rodrigo Honorato] 

Okay, well, let me. Well, there are different ways, right? So I usually like to take my little notes depending on what kind of activity that is. So I nowadays I teach online classes, so when my student is producing in a natural way, I just take my notes in here. So it's like well pronunciation here.

Grammar needs to change. That helps me prepare the next classes. By the way, you know, when I see that the student is always making that same mistake and then I take notes and I do it later. However, if the student is actually learning that language, you know, that grammar, that specific thing, and that's when I stop on the spot, it just go like this. Hey, you said she don't.

00:42:51 

Again is that she don't. Doesn't that sound weird to you? So, oh yes, teacher, sorry, she doesn't. Okay. And then I do it on the spot because I want the form right now.

So if it's focused on the form, I do it at the moment. If it's focused on the communication, how the things, you know, just like maybe that's a warm up time and the student is just telling me about what happened on the weekend. I don't correct on the spot. I just leave it for later. And I say while you're saying that, you said I have 25 years, but actually you want to say I am 25 years old and then I correct it later.

[Hemylle Oliveira] 

And keeping that notebook is a great strategy to inform teaching, as you said, to plan for for future meetings. Another question before we move on to our next part of this session was about motivation with adult learners. So one our attendees mentioned that she tries to create this welcoming environment to learners and supporting them in every way. But at times she feels they lack Confidence.

00:43:59 

How do you provide support for your adult learners in the classroom? Can you share some more tips with us?

[Rodrigo Honorato] 

Yes. So I love teaching adults. Most of my students, they are adults.

I have only two teenagers. I haven't taught kids in a while. So actually, five years ago, I stopped teaching children. So, you know, the adults, we want to feel that we are producing, we want results. So I always give them feedback, like instant feedback.

But the simple things like, hey, good job. Wow, your sentence came out perfectly. Good job. You know, things just to boost their, you know, confidence so they feel good in the class. And I like to work with those, you know, about me things.

You know, just give me a presentation of your job, so tell me about what you do. And then at the end of the class, they feel like this, wow, I can talk about my job. So, you know, I have simple language for them to communicate exactly what they want to communicate. So for them to express themselves. And they have that on go language.

00:45:12

So it's like this. Yeah. To go language. Right now, just like this is what I need. Functional language that, you know, I'm.

I'm checking that. And I had forgotten the. The expression that's like functional language, you know, for them to, you know, really speak what they need to speak without going like this. Oh, but I heard this in series, and that's. No, just go here, Focus here.

You. You can do it. And yes, that's basically what I do. Ready to go language.

[Hemylle Olveira] 

That's superb, Rodrigo. Thank you so much. It was such a pleasure to have you here. Thank you.